Thursday, July 21, 2016

Cleveland: Where The Hot Wind Blows

Greg Stillson Unchained



Greg Stillson, Crazy Idiot Loser Unsuccessful Republican Candidate,
Shares His Private Aspirations At The RNC In Cleveland (Photo: CheeseStar)

Grand TurtleBear Greg Stillson of the Church Of I Kill You !! was unsuccessful against Il Duce in the 'Race To The Bottom' primary contests. Little Greg, accompanied by his wife, Irgrud, promised their supporters smaller government, that Lloyd Blankfein would be made secretary of the Treasury; a written guarantee signed by the lord and savior (well, somebody's lord 'n savior, anyway) that they would be transported to heaven "at a date and time of their own choosing";  and, that they "shall taste man-flesh!"
 
 Loser's Night: Greg And Dashboard Jesus Appeared
Before The Multi 'Tudes

None of it worked. Trumpo was too powerful. He had big hands. Greg had a big big sad, because the lord of Hostess© did not live in his pants. The night ended in terror and shame, and the Grand TurtleBear blubbered like a five-year-old, accompanied by his close campaign advisor, Dashboard Jesus -- who made meaningless Who's Awesome? You're Awesome gestures to the multitudes while firing random spitwads at them.

As a consolation prize, Greg was offered an opportunity to speak to the Republican convention, with an understanding that in the name of party unity, Greg would stay on his meds (400mg of Thorazine every 4 hours) and endorse the apotheosis of Trumpo, Clown-Emperor of Dealdom.

Greg was sly. He palmed his meds. He smiled, slyly. He walked to the podium, smiled again his trademark sly smile that says, Take it from me: the earth is 6,500 years old; and I am One Of Youuuuuu!! Then he delivered a speech.  In the process, he showed his pudgy, cheese-dimpled butt to all America and the world, the teevee broadcasting these images to as yet unknown alien races in galaxies not yet catalogued, for all time.  When these aliens see it, they will seek us out and eradicate all life on our planet. Because Freedom.

We may not have gotten it all down exactly, but we're pretty sure Greg said something like this.  Or he wanted to, really bad.
Thank you. Irgrud and I are honored by Lebron James tonight. And as I'm convinced America is going, I congratulate Donald, right over there (nods), on taking the nomination..

Conventions are excrement. But you'll listen to me before we burn you at the stake for your apostasy in not allowing me -- me -- to fulfill my destiny before god and my pants.

Just a while ago, a carefree Texas summer was destroyed by my loss of primaries to Mister Trump, over there (points). On that day I was martyred, Irgrud hugged me and said we still had friends at Goldman, wink, wink. But I had been murdered. I was in tears. How could anything ever be OK again? I feel things that happen to me deeply. To ME!

Then I had the chance to come here and force you ungrateful, spiteful, stupid agents of Satan to listen, to me. Me! ME!! And as I thought about what I wanted to say tonight, it's that we live in a world where lives are destroyed by evil, just as mine was. Not that you care.

Maybe it is because of a simple yet powerful idea: freedom from is greater than freedom to. And, were I the leader of this great Nation, all America would know that from Day One.

I want everything I've ever seen in the movies. I want to make you love me, and to love Jesus too when you have time, though I would keep you busy. Never has that message been  needed more than today. You owed me that. You all owed me so much.

Of course, Clinton, and Trump over there, will tell you I am crazy. Crazy! Me! Well, they don't know about my visions -- visions for the future. They don't know my dreams. They would run screaming in fear and pain and awe, if they could but see what I have in my pants. God is there. Let me show you.  [Exposes hind parts] Thank you.

Hillary Clinton deals heroin and has a house full of children to service her. It's true! And all dictated out of Washington. But something powerful is happening. Voters are rejecting cement lawn gnomes. They are symbols of Satan, of government, of a corrupt system that benefits the elites, instead of working girls and Feed Lot maintenance personnel.

I tried to tell you. I deserve so much. And you could have given it to me. America put a man on the moon. Surely you could have given me this, but no. No!

You deserve leaders who cast aside principle, and untie us behind a Principal. Who have anger for love. That is the standard you should expect -- punishment, and secret forbidden love, and television Jesus. No less.

And to those listening, please, don't go and do things in your kitchens where you think I can't see you. I know you stay home to do them, but you are wrong. And bad. And badly wrong. You must be punished, but you will learn to love the rope.

We must make the most of our moment. We must sieze and choke and drive and shave. To fight for me was to fight for freedom, to protect your god-given right to acknowledge me. Me! And I give those I love one final lingering deep kiss goodbye, with tongue. As I curse all those who were foul betrayers, I will say, "I am something beautiful".

Thanks. And bless me. You had your chance, but you fucked it up !!  Now you're going to get almost a decade of She Who Must Not Be Named, when you could have had ME !!!
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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Time Of The Weasel

Get Out The Popcorn And The Amarlite

The Weasel Who Lives On Trump's Head 
Speaks At The Republican Convention, Cleveland (Photo: CheeseStar)
________________________

MEHR, MIT EIN ANDEREN (Actual Conversation):
MVOHC: Watching  any of the Republican  convention ?
DOG: Some.
MVOHC: So?
DOG: It's not Triumph Of The Will, is it?
MVOHC: What's that?
DOG: Uh.... I  gotta do stuff.
Actually, my favorite part of this quadrennial gathering of the Parteigenossen (so far) was Little Ben Carson's speech last night. It's really amazing how full of hate this person is, so much so that he's barely recognizable as a person.
...I’m not politically correct. And I hate political correctness because it’s antithetical to the founding principles of this country and the secular progressives use it to make people sit down and shut up while they change everything. It’s time for us to stand up and shout out about what we believe in.

...We must resist the temptation to take the easy way out and to passively accept what is fed to us by the political elite and the media because they don’t know what they’re talking about and they have an agenda.

...Interestingly enough... Hillary Clinton ...would continue with a system that denigrates the education of our young people, puts them in a place where they’re never going to be able to get a job, where they’re always going to be dependent and where they can therefore be cultivated for their votes...

One of the things that I have learned about Hillary Clinton is that one of her heroes, her mentors... is Saul Alinsky... He wrote a book called “Rules For Radicals”. On the dedication page, it acknowledges Lucifer, "the original radical who gained his own kingdom". Now think about that. This is a nation where ... our Pledge of Allegiance says we are “one nation, under God”. This is a nation where every coin in our pocket and every bill in our wallet says “In God We Trust”. So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that.

The secular progressive agenda is antithetical to the principles of the founding of this nation. If we continue to allow them to take god out of our lives, god will remove himself from us, we will not be blessed and our nation will go down the tubes and we will be responsible for that. We don’t want that to happen.

...It is not about me. It is about we, the people, and Thomas Jefferson said that we would reach this point, because we the people would not be paying attention, and it would allow the government to grow, to expand, and to metastasize and to try to rule us. But he said before we turn into something else, we the people would recognize what was going on, what we were about to lose, and we would rise up and we would take control of our nation and I say now is the time for us to rise up and take America back. 
 And that's Jenga.
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Thursday, July 14, 2016

Random Barking Too, Also

When The Going Gets Weird, The Weird Turn Pro

(One of the unspoken Intertube traditions [which we recognize, as we do All Intertube Traditions] is, Never Blog After An, uh, 'Social Call'.  Blogs [so it is said] should be for sober reflection and analysis, if you want people [that is, the three people and the Superintelligent Parakeet who read this blog] to take you seriously. Well; fuck that; let's push on.)

When the Brexit was a Day One news item, I noted the English-language European and American mainstream media characterized 'Leave' voters as resembling the 'National Front' types I encountered in London in the late 70's -- racist, nationalistic troglodytes -- as if the only motivation for wanting to leave the EU could be the potential for a sudden influx of Middle Eastern refugees.

Even today, pundits on some very nice soapboxes are still saying the Brexit is the last gasp of White Britain, the Last Hurrah of a Failed Empire, brought about by political Neanderthals, doomed to extinction by the forward march of Progress.

Progress, For Them: More Exclusive Resort Locales

Maybe. But after you pare away the  Raving Loonies, those focused on keeping out 'the Darks', the "Little Englanders" -- the Vote became a rejection of the elitist-sponsored inequality being brought to you under the label of Globalism.

Before 2008 (and even for a time after), anyone claiming that the world was being structured for the benefit of the few at the expense of everyone else -- that it was an organized effort -- would have been marginalized, derided as part of the Tinfoil Hat crowd, a Loony Liberal (or, worse, a Communist) and effectively ignored:Yeah; go stand over there, with the 9-11 guys and David Ickes with his nine-foot reptilian Overlords and the anti-Semites.

The MSM have repeatedly described The Crash as an excess of the financial 'community' -- an aberration, something out of the ordinary. Like many others, I watch the monthly U.S. employment figures and CPI, and the gyrations of the global Market in an attempt to read the tea leaves... but all that is part of everyone's post-Crash focus: Are we 'getting back to normal'? 

The fix of The Crash was to bail out the institutions and individuals who caused it. After a while, no one in the MSM seemed to pay much attention to the fact that All Of Us had paid to bail out corporate banks, to underwrite their private insolvency with public loans. Because they were Too Big To Fail. Because Freedom.
"[There was] a contract that said, if you work hard, if you essentially are a good citizen, there will be a place for you, not only an economic place, you will have a secure life, your kids will have a chance to have a better life, but you will sort of be recognized as part of the national fabric."

The ... American institutions that underpinned this contract including locally-owned businesses, unions, and public schools. ... the void left by the decline of these institutions was filled by the default force in American life, organized money.
-- Wikipedia Entry (Paraphrased), "The Unwinding", George Packer (2013)
And in the eight years since Der Untergang, there has been a resulting massive shift in American society (and in global institutions) which we haven't come to terms with -- primarily because humans always seek a stable local reality, and will ignore a ton of shit if it means they're "getting by".  Meanwhile, over 90% of income increases since 2008 have gone to a fraction of our population; trillions in wealth have been transferred from the majority to that tiny, useless minority.  And it is not coming back.

Not everyone can march in the streets, but it's still relatively safe to cast an anonymous vote -- ergo, Bernie's popularity in America, and Trumpo's. And the Brexit vote. They're bellwethers of what's going on in the hearts of The People, things that can't necessarily be bought or manipulated by Kochbrudern money, or Little Rupert's 24X7 sewage operation.

Mister, Jones

Everyone I know has the sense (and has had it, since the shark-feeding-frenzy Verrüktzeit preceding The Crash) that we're rocketing towards an unknown singularity. It may crush us flat, as we travel an Einstein-Rosen Bridge of history, before being blown out into the future. 

Some kind of change is coming; the bellwethers are all around us: For decades, art and film have presented stories set after some unimaginable crash / alien incursion / pandemic / Zombie apocalypse / fascist revolution.  In real life, politics has devolved into populism on the Left and faux-populism on the altRight, while Business As Usual (personified by Herr Obama and Hillary The Inevitable !) still runs the show. The Usual Suspects still own the circus. The future is set because they wish it.

It is a sham and all of us know. So in November, just three people will come out to vote. One will cast a ballot for a glorious return of Clintonia; one will vote for the return of The Good Ole Daze. One will arrive to vote for Ralph Nader, but is nearsighted and so votes for Her Majesty in error. And so Cruella Deville will be Our Leader. Or will she?  Such a cliffhanger !
One of my Hillaryite Colleagues is nervous again, stunned by Hillary's plummeting polls since Comey justly called her a serial liar and regal jackass with neither interest in or competence for following rules mere mortals must. He's leading in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Florida, HC said. O look, I said, pointing to the big screen in the Student Union, a truck plowed into a Bastille Day crowd in France. HC said, this is nuts. Students rushed through the Student Union holding cell phones in front of their faces, screaming at each other like battle bugles. It's dress rehearsal, I said.
--  Soul Of America, "And We Should Dance"
No one know what's going to happen, and no one knows the Form Of The Destructor. The only  takeaway we have is a gnawing foreboding. We sense there is an iceberg, dead ahead, a banana peel or large clump of animal feces on the sidewalk in the dark. But we can't discern it's exact shape -- Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is; do you, Mr. Jones. 

All I can do is pay attention to other observers on the Net who are much better at a broader analysis than this humble Dog correspondent. And to join the Greek chorus of those who pass along their observations so that we all too, also, might benefit.

The old world is discombobulating right in front of our eyes. Keep looking, and don't turn away.
In Britain as well as America... The triumph of Margaret Thatcher in the 1978 general election had the same role there as Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980 did over here: a new, more aggressive conservatism took up the Left’s rhetoric of class warfare with a vengeance and inverted it, ushering in an era in which the rich rebelled against the poor.

The Labour Party under Tony Blair... responded [in] the same way [as the Democratic party] did under Bill Clinton: both ... dropped their previous commitments to the working class and the poor, and focused instead on issues that appealed to affluent liberals.  They gambled that the working class and the poor would keep voting for them out of ... misplaced loyalty—and over the short term, that gamble paid off.

The result in both countries was a political climate in which the only policies up for discussion were those that favored the interests of the affluent at the expense of the working classes and the poor [Emphasis added]. That point has been muddied so often, and in so many highly imaginative ways, that it’s probably necessary to detail it here.
 Progress, For You: The Decline
Rising real estate prices, for example, benefit those who own real estate, since their properties end up worth more, but it penalizes those who must rent their homes, since they have to pay more of their income for rent. Similarly, cutting social-welfare benefits for the disabled favors those who pay taxes at the expense of those who need those benefits to survive.
In the same way, encouraging unrestricted immigration into a country that already has millions of people permanently out of work, and encouraging the offshoring of industrial jobs so that the jobless are left to compete for an ever-shrinking pool of jobs, benefit the affluent at the expense of everyone else.
The law of supply and demand applies to labor just as it does to everything else:  increase the supply of workers and decrease the demand for their services, and wages will be driven down. The affluent benefit from this, since they pay less ... but the working poor and the jobless are harmed ... since they receive less income if they can find jobs at all.

It’s standard for this straightforward logic to be obfuscated by claims that immigration benefits the economy as a whole—but who receives the bulk of the benefits, and who carries most of the costs?  That’s not something anybody in British or American public life has been willing to discuss for the last thirty years. 
-- John Michael Greer, Archdruid Report
The Benefits Of Globalism: Obligatory Small Animal Photo
In Middle Of Blog Thing
Cameron’s risky bet to hold a referendum on Britain’s EU membership has backfired disastrously. The unexpected victory for the leave camp has shaken both Unions to their very core, dividing left and right on either side of the Channel ...
 Yet the unspeakable truth is that, at a deeper level, the [Brexit vote] ... has [to do] with ... the widening gulf between political elites and European citizens more generally. While racism and anti-immigrant sentiment have been central to the leave campaign from the very start, it is difficult to believe that all 52 percent of Britons who voted leave are committed fascists.

Many of these people are ordinary working class folks who are simply fed up with the erosion of their living standards, the disintegration of their communities, the lack of responsiveness of their political representatives, and the unaccountable technocracy that has “taken control” over their lives. Brexit was first and foremost a political statement by the dispossessed and disempowered.

... Ultimately, the British vote to leave the EU, whether it eventually materializes or not (and there is no guarantee that it will), is symptomatic of ... a structural crisis of democratic capitalism, that has in recent years evolved from a global financial crisis into a deepening legitimation crisis of the political establishment, which is now in turn exploding into a full-blown crisis of governability of the existing social and political order...

-- ROAR Magazine; Jerome Roos, editor: "#Brexit Confirms: The Neoliberal Center Cannot Hold"
... the Founders distrusted popular government for the simple, unassailable reason that the American people are drawn ineluctably to raving bigots and would-be totalitarians. Who are these unhinged, pitchfork-wielding yahoos, now rudely demanding their moment of reckoning at the expense of the institutions erected to discipline them?
-- "The Political Class Struggles", Chris Lehman, 'The Baffler'
For Us:  Eight Nine More Years; Business As Usual. With Occasional Botox.
Hillary really seems to believe that her victory is enough of a consolation prize to negate our miseries. Sadly, there are enough people who agree that she'll never disabuse herself or her notion. If she loses, she'll blame us. We'll have deprived ourselves of the joy of witnessing her happiness.
-- :p, Airport through the Trees
______________________________

MEHR, MIT:  There is also, too, this from Something You Should Read:
The greatest trick the Republicans ever performed was dragging America’s political spectrum so far right of center that the Democrats caved and became center-right corporatist shills ... a horrendous compromise between anti-war, anti-poverty, anti-racist idealists who believe in building a better America, and the well-to-do status quo defending blowhards who think buying a Beyonce album on iTunes is somehow proof you believe Black Lives Matter.

Essentially, those who understand our current politics are infested with a rot that spread misery and poverty, and “free market” neoliberals who cloak their faith in the current system with a sick and twisted perversion of “Identity Politics.” They seek nothing more than a more diverse oligarchy to rule over the poor and the disadvantaged, they think they can weaponize poverty to punish and silence white racism. They’ll call illegal drone strikes a “white issue,” they’ll defend an infinitely rich and powerful white woman’s vocal support of an illegal war that has murdered hundreds of thousands if not millions. They’ll support a “sit-in” to create policy around a Bush-era terrorist watchlist to strip rights from Muslims. All of this is so far detached from anything a “Left” would ever stand for. ...

Let me make it clear ... you were an outspoken supporter of a Liberal White Supremacy that infests our current political class. One that pretends a black President is somehow a victory while the wealth gap between white and black families has only grown under his reign. One that believes Silicon Valley can somehow end racism through apps. One that pretends Edward Snowden is somehow a traitor, while a Secretary of State running a private email server to hide from public accountability and FOIA requests is somehow woke feminist labor. One that pretends Hillary only voted for the Iraq War because doing otherwise would be “political suicide.” One that pretends claiming poverty while having a luxurious AirBNB in a developing nation is not grossly inappropriate. One that thinks a vote for an infinitely rich and powerful white woman whose incompetence has had grave consequences for poor Muslim women overseas is somehow a meaningful victory for feminism....

Vote for Hillary all you want. However, wrapping it up in a triumphant narrative of identity politics and social justice when the only success is more dead innocent Muslims overseas — for no fucking reason — I mean the drone assassination program Hillary Clinton oversaw as Secretary of State had a fucking 90% failure rate— is nothing short of absolute vulgarity.
__________________________________

Random Barking

Casual Cruelty To Animals

(Apologies to Tom Ridgeway / asdfmovies)
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Thursday, July 7, 2016

Reprint Heaven: Welcome To Target


Because Freedom

(Because we think there's a problem.  From June 11, 2015.)



(Photo By Mongo + Android / Photoshop)
_____________________________________________

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Torn From Today's Headliners

No Harrassing Ex-Fox News Charges In Roger Ailes' Mishandling Of Clinton Sexual FBI Emails 

After a subheading like that, you're expecting text?
____________________

Menschlichkeit

Elie Wiesel, 1928 - 2016


It's late to say, but Elie Wiesel passed away over the weekend.

There's little I can add to what's already been said about him, even during his lifetime. My introduction to him was reading Souls On Fire ("When I am asked about my Jewish affiliation, I define myself as a Hasid, " Wiesel once wrote. "Hasid I was, Hasid I remain"), which contains one of my favorite thoughts about the power of writing and belief. 

The great rabbi Baal Shem-Tov loved his people, Wiesel wrote. Whenever he sensed they were in danger, he would go to a secret place in the woods, light a special fire, and say a special prayer. Then, without fail, his people would be saved from danger. Baal Shem-Tov passed on and his disciple, Magid of Mezritch, came to lead the people. Whenever he sensed his people were in danger, he would go to the secret place in the woods. "Dear God," he would say, "I don't know how to light the special fire, but I know the special prayer. Please let that be good enough." It was, and the people would once again be saved from danger. 

When Magid passed on, he was succeeded by another rabbi, the Rabbi Moshe-leib of Sasov, and whenever he heard that his people were in danger, he would go to the secret place in the woods. "Dear God," he would say, "I don't know how to make the special fire, I don't know how to say the special prayer, but I know this secret place in the woods. Please let that be good enough." It was, and the people would once again be saved from danger. 

When Rabbi Moshe passed, he was succeeded by Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn, and whenever somebody told him that his people were in danger, he didn't even get out of his armchair. He could only bow his head and shrug his shoulders. "Dear God," he would pray, "I don't know how to make the special fire. I don't know how to say the special prayer. I don't even know the secret place in the woods. All I know is the story, and I'm hoping that's good enough."

It was, and his people would be saved.

Then (Wiesel adds), the moral of this is, God made man because He loves stories

Now he knows what we do not. Another Mensch leaves us; and as I do not tire of saying, we live in a world with a very limited supply of Mensches.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Benny The Beaver Blue

It's New


Courtesy of The Soul Of America, it seems the good people at Oregon State University (Go Beavers!) have developed a new shade of the color, Blue, called YInMn -- Mn for Manganese, and the rest for, uh, another thing.

But, unless you're a chemist, you don't care. While the compound has many exciting properties related to infrared radiation, and determining whether Hillary The Inevitable likes Cold Cereal Porn, it's simply very beautiful.

Obligatory Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Filler

Occasionally, that's all that matters. At the moment there's not exactly a surfeit of Beauty in plain sight, so take a break, expand the size of this photo on your desktop to 1000%, and enjoy. No, I do not mean the photo of The Hillary.
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Wednesday, June 29, 2016

The Monster Truck And The Rubber Duck Collide

And The Universe Was Born
O Happy Zion: Your Reward Awaits You In Jesusland™

What, you have a problem with this cosmology? It's as valid a Creation Myth as any other. I'm not fond of Monster Trucks (no matter how much I liked the series, House), true, but The Great Duck is our savior; He also floats, and is appealing as a chew toy:  I like my saviors to be multi-purpose.
Obey the Great Duck in all His forms. 

But yes, What Is All This? Why Are We, and What's It All For? Ah, the age-old questions -- life in all its multitudinous forms.  We won't be finding any answers today, but there is still fun social commentary for YOU, which is almost as good. Possibly.

( Click For Huge and Readable Version; It's Easy And Fun! )

MEHR, MIT EIN GESICHTE:  Speaking of Cosmology and Ducks and Fun, here's a true story: I once had a friend, who is now (just by the luck of the draw) famous and wealthy, someone who has in fact added to human culture in a not-so-small way, and who once told me a tale about his hitchhiking days. It relates to the Big Questions Of Life, but only just barely.

He was seventeen, and one Fall day, splitting from his home on the Great Lakes (which also involved a brush with John Wayne Gacy, but that's for another time), began thumbing it up north into Canada. He hooked up with two men, a classic Mutt-and-Jeff team, driving up into The Maritimes ostensibly to make and sell chocolate fudge. Jeff was tall and spindly in his forties or early fifties with a shock of black hair greying at the temples; Mutt was short, with a close-cropped buzz-cut (known from my Army days as a 'high and tight') who smoked cigarillos and looked a little like Popeye. 

My friend had a well-developed radar for Crazies, and after a time riding along read these two as fairly routine types (at least they weren't serial killers).  They had a station wagon pulling a U-Haul style trailer filled with fudge-making apparatus and a sales stand. It also became fairly clear that their business, while necessary, wasn't the prime focus of their travels.

It didn't take long for my friend to determine that Mutt and Jeff had Little Black Books, and their trips were like unto the routes of sailors, reaching ports of call where they knew the names and telephone numbers of every love-starved and rapacious widow, divorcee, and spinster librarian under thirty from Vancouver to Newfoundland. 

Apparently, they drove across Canada during the year, making fudge, making some money, seeing women they knew (and being introduced to a few new ones), then taking another route back west before starting all over again.

My friend passed himself off as nineteen, out of high school and just bumming around. Mutt and Jeff nominally appeared to accept my friend's story, and offered him the chance to tag along and join their team. Their normal routine was to drive into a town, file whatever paperwork, sell fudge by day and live well by night. My friend, at seventeen, was flabbergasted at the frank availability of the, uh, ladies Mutt and Jeff knew -- who also had friends very happy to, uh, get to know a young man. This all went on until needs financial and physical were satisfied; then, they pushed on to the next wind-swept Canadian town.

Canada: Renowned Worldwide For Its Beaver, 
And You Knew This Joke Was Coming

Somewhere in there, Mutt and Jeff also picked up The Kid. Not the Kenosha Kid -- this one was nineteen, tall, painfully blonde to the point of being a near-Albino. He was also Mormon, who had been out on his Year Of Witnessing (or whatever it's called). Young Mormons performing this rite of passage do so in the company of other Young Mormons, or with an Elder whose job is to keep a watchful eye on them.  

The Kid had a crisis of faith on the road. He wasn't sure if he was Mormon, or what, any longer, and had simply walked to the nearest highway and put out his thumb: If you don't know which way you're going, it don't matter which road you take. To the other Mormon(s) he was traveling with, The Kid had just up and disappeared.

I refer to him as The Kid because, even two years older than my friend, The Kid was clueless. And hitchhiking alone across Nowhere Canada, with dwindling finances, ashamed and frightened at the idea of returning to his family in Utah in his confused state.  

My friend's take was that Mutt and Jeff sized him up as Not Crazy, just Trying To Sort Things Out, and felt sorry for him. While he wasn't a danger to others, he was a Kid alone on the High Way, and Mutt and Jeff decided to take him into the Empire Of Fudgelandia for a while until he could decide his next move, and offer him an opportunity to make a little cash in the process. Plus, he got to meet girls in a way that he wouldn't have been able to do in the shadow of the Big Temple in Salt Lake City. The Kid, as the trip progressed, seemed to like that part of it.

He was given, however, to questioning the religious beliefs with which he had been raised -- volubly and frequently. He argued for them, against them; back and forth, a mirror of his own inner conflict, thinking out loud. Mutt and Jeff were fairly tolerant of these outbursts, which were greatly toned down if The Kid had ready access to Girls.

The drive up into The Maritimes continued. It began to get colder. Mutt and Jeff, my friend and The Kid drove in the station wagon-and trailer into a town that had a medium-sized mall with two floors of shops on all four sides of a large, open area, and topped by a skylight. The mall was heated during the winter months, and the open area was a perfect location for the fudge stand.

One day around noon, Mutt, The Kid and my friend were manning the fudge stand inside the mall. The sun had been trying hard to break through clouds most of the day; sales were slow, and The Kid had been banging on about religion in a general way since the morning. Mutt, dressed all in white when making and selling fudge -- white pants, apron, white T-shirt and a small white fry-cook's cap -- was leaning against the fudge machine, his face screwed up like Popeye's as he looked up every now and again at the skylight, listening as The Kid explained some aspect of Mormonism to my friend.

Even though Mutt's attitude toward The Kid's diatribes was kindly, he usually declined to join in.  Finally, The Kid turned to Mutt and asked, "So, what religion are you? I mean, what were you raised as?"

Mutt slowly took his omnipresent cigarillo out of his mouth. "I'm a Hueyist," he said simply, and looked up towards the grey sky above the mall. 

"What -- you mean, that big duck in the cartoons?" The Kid was nonplussed for a moment, then laughed at Mutt -- no; he guffawed. " 'Baby Huey' ??"

Mutt paused, as if in thought, still looking up, then quickly looked at The Kid with an utterly rock-solid, serious expression and said, quietly, "Don't make fun of Huey."

At that moment, the mall was flooded with light, pouring through its glass roof; the interior of the little arcade blazed as if someone were testing a nuclear warhead in the sky above. The Kid looked up, eyes wide, mouth slack-open in Awe and Fear, utterly speechless. It was clear he was at least considering that it might not be wise to mock the Power and Glory that was Huey in future.

As The Kid stood gobsmacked, rooted in place and staring up at the heavens, my friend looked over at Mutt. A tiny smile was creasing his face, just for an instant, before he replaced the cigarillo in his mouth and turned back to the fudge machine. He had been looking up, watching the clouds through the skylight, and timed his response to The Kid just as the clouds parted and the sun, at zenith above the mall, suddenly broke through.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Sarajevo

Unraveling

Cousin Ignatz, Asleep At Princip's Post: Sarajevo, 2014 (Matthew Fisher / Postmedia News)

Roughly twelve hours and 102 years ago, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, the Grand Duchess Sophie, were shot by Gavrillo Princip, a member of an assassination team sent to the Bosnian city by the government of Serbia.

Collectively, the team was the gang which couldn't shoot straight: armed with crude grenades, a few pistols, and carrying some form of suicide pill, they waited along the route Franz Joseph's car would take as it drove beside the Miljacka river, which cuts through Sarajevo (local Austro-Hungarian authorities had helpfully published the Archduke's route beforehand).

Most of the team either was poorly positioned, or chickened out at the last moment.  One conspirator did throw a bomb at the Archduke's car, which bounced off its folded-back fabric top and exploded near a second car traveling just behind. Several people in the car had minor injuries and it continued on to a local hospital.

The Archduke's driver continued to Sarajevo city hall. When Franz Ferdinand arrived, he effectively unloaded on the hapless city administration about the state of their local security. Meanwhile, back at the river, the would-be bomber had jumped into the Miljacka and swallowed his suicide pill -- then, promptly threw up. The police arrested him, barely managing to keep him from a mob of pro- Austro-Hungarian citizens and save him for later trial and execution.

At approximately 12:30 PM, having finally accepted the thanks of the Sarajevo city fathers, Franz Ferdinand and his wife got back into their car, planning to go to the local hospital to see those wounded in the attack that morning. They used the same route, in reverse, that they had taken into the city, driving along the river, but their driver was confused.  He came to an intersection -- to the left, a street; to the right, a bridge over the Miljacka.

 The Royal Couple (Seated, At Rear) Leaving City Hall: Fifteen Minutes Left

Their driver turned left into the street, immediately realized he'd made a wrong turn, and stepped on the brakes. The car came to a stop a few yards up the street and the driver put it in reverse gear.

 The Intersection, 2014: The Archduke's Car Turned Left, Into This Street;
The Restaurant Where Princip Had Lunch Now A Museum (Photo: CNN)

At that same intersection, Gavrillo Princip, the last member of the Serbian assassination team, walked out of a small restaurant where he had gone for a sandwich, angry and dejected, after the team's failure that morning. As he stood on the sidewalk outside the cafe, the Archduke's car stopped directly in front of him; the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were less than ten feet away. If you were writing a novel or screenplay, something that coincidental would be considered impossible.

Princip pulled out a pistol and stepped forward, firing several shots, managing to mortally wound both the Archduke and his wife. Their driver rushed them to the local military governor's residence, where a doctor could be called quickly, but Sophie died on the way; Ferdinand died a short time after they arrived.

Just over a month later, Europe was at war. Over the next four-plus years, the entire social fabric of the continent and much of the world changed irrevocably. Monarchies ended; millions died; the map of the world changed as the victors annexed territory from Germany and Austria Hungary, and new countries were created. New technology was developed -- and, in the Versailles Treaty, the groundwork was laid for a second, even more horrible war to begin by 1939.

(And, in 1918-19, the Spanish Influenza infected 500 million people and killed 40 million, worldwide; it was the largest number of deaths due to pandemic disease since the 'Black Death' Bubonic Plague outbreak in the 14th century [~200 million].  In the U.S., millions were made sick, and 675,000 died [0.6-plus per cent of America's population at the time, 103 million]. It's often referred to as the "forgotten epidemic" -- just one more terrible event in an ocean of violence and atrocity.)

 Cousin Ignatz, Worn Out By All The History
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Why the history lesson? It's been a week of history. While the Brexit is not a shot heard 'round the world, and no one suggests that apocalyptic events will spring from it -- is it (A) the continuation of the slow unraveling of the alliances created after that Great War and WWII, which shaped the world we live in, or is it (B) the latest vote against the globalization of that world?

Hope you're not looking for an answer. I am, after all, only a Dog, and no one listens to me.
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